White's housing guru resigns post

Published 5:30 am, Saturday, September 23, 2006

John Walsh, who signed on to help Mayor Bill White improve housing and neighborhoods for poor Houstonians and ended up directing the massive housing program for hurricane evacuees, has resigned from White's administration.

Walsh, 62, said this week that the overwhelming challenge of housing evacuees had made it increasingly difficult to fulfill his other duties as White's deputy chief of staff for neighborhoods and housing.

When Walsh was hired in July 2004, one of his first assignments was to reform the city's Housing and Community Development Department, which auditors said had been plagued for years by mismanagement, inefficiency and secrecy. Developers had defaulted on most of the loans the department had made for affordable, multifamily housing projects.

The department has improved under director Milton Wilson Jr., appointed by White in December 2004, but "those challenges are not over," Walsh said.

When evacuees began streaming into Houston a year ago after Hurricane Katrina devastated the New Orleans area, Walsh took charge of a program that would provide free rent and utilities to some 35,000 evacuee households in apartments throughout the Houston area. His staff of three expanded to more than 600.

"We worked 12 to 14 hours a day, seven days a week, for five months," Walsh said.

Walsh's duties will be divided among various city officials, but his position will not be filled, mayoral spokesman Frank Michel said.